Safety training for SouthCoast fishermen an eye-opener

Thirty-three fishermen and SMAST students and staff tried out, for the first time for many of them, fire extinguishers, flares, bailout pumps, life rafts and survival suits.

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Posted Jun. 6, 2014 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jun 6, 2014 at 6:00 AM

Posted Jun. 6, 2014 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jun 6, 2014 at 6:00 AM

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"You fish in the rain, you train in the rain," said Ed Dennehy, USCG (Ret.), director of safety training for the Massachusetts Fishing Partnership as the fishing vessel safety training carried on in the pouring rain at the UMass School for Marine Science and Technology.

Thirty-three fishermen and SMAST students and staff tried out, for the first time for many of them, fire extinguishers, flares, bailout pumps, life rafts and survival suits — all at no charge to them.

If they weren't getting wet outside they were getting wet inside, where the SMAST indoor water tank was crowded with fishermen in their own survival suits. First they learned how to put on the suits properly, then they learned how difficult it is to board a life raft from the water.

Ted Williams, marine safety director of Hercules SLR US, Inc., of New Bedford gave a lifeboat demonstration that included deploying one outside the building. It was something, he said, that most people have never seen, even in the fishing industry.

That was the idea all around. The day-long course Thursday was hands-on, so that the next time these people use a flare or a lifeboat or a bailout pump, it won't be for the first time.

It's hard to believe, but 10 years ago this training didn't exist, at least not in this form. Fishermen could pay for training, or pretty much do without it.

But Williams said the deaths of 27 fishermen in the course of three months forced a massive re-think, and the fishermen and the Coast Guard began working together because it was a matter of life and death.

For nine years the Fishing Partnership has been conducting these classes using Coast Guard certified fishing vessel safety instructors in a half dozen coastal fishing towns in Massachusetts.

On Day 2, which is today at SMAST, a smaller group will be learning to be certified as drill instructors in the image of Rodney Avila, the waterfront legend who now works as drill instructor for Hercules.

Dan O'Connor of Marine Safety Consultants of Fairhaven delivered the demonstration of fire extinguishers, but his real theme was safety, and preventing fires in the first place by doing such things as taming pinhole leaks in fuel lines, for example, that atomize fuel and set up an explosion.

Each participant was given the task of running the Coast Guard's standard emergency water pump, identical everywhere the Coast Guard uses them. If they're dropped to your sinking boat, you are sure going to want to know how it works in advance.

About flares: Williams teaches not to use them up in the first few hours. Use one and wait until someone is within view and then use another one. He told the grim tale of a pleasure boat crew that used all the flares in the first eight hours, then went 29 days in a life raft that all the passing traffic couldn't see.

The training goes on and on. Dean Karoblis, a lobsterman out of Plymouth, said he is a second generation fisherman and this was the first time he was actually in the water wearing his survival suit. It made a serious impression. "It was huge," he said while waiting in line to fire a parachute flare (very startling and quite dangerous).

The afternoon session went mostly indoors in classroom settings, with the instructors teaching first aid, man-overboard procedures, and helicopter hoist procedures.

Nobody minded the rain, because this was good, valuable stuff for anybody who might be on a boat of any description. And in the end, it was a true illustration of the dangers that fishermen face on a daily basis. Very impressive.

Steve Urbon's column appears in The Standard-Times and SouthCoastToday.com. He can be reached at 508-979-4448 or surbon@s-t.com.